


Lady Mercy Won't Be Home Tonight

by codefiant



Series: Hammer to Fall [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Backstory, Bigotry & Prejudice, Dystopia, Eugenics, Gen, Genetics, Post-Nuclear War, Science Fiction, Social Stratification, Sterilization, Unethical Medicine, Worldbuilding, identification tattoos, medical neglect, mention of euthanasia, not an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7890247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codefiant/pseuds/codefiant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the bombs stopped falling, society had to make itself anew. A strict genetic hierarchy rose from the ashes.</p><p>It's a hierarchy that Keith's at the bottom of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Mercy Won't Be Home Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Oops I wrote backstory for the wrong fic.

Keith's mother dies unpeacefully, vomiting blood and shaking. Less than a year later, Keith's father gets the injection as soon as he gets sick.

Keith is barely old enough to remember either of them.

* * *

The other DNT in the orphanage is named Lily. She's a year older than Keith and they have little else in common, but the other atomic orphans treat them as social pariahs so they stick together. The caretakers don't help. Ration books are all equal, but that doesn't stop them from giving Keith and Lily the smallest portions.

Lily dies when Keith is eight. After she gets sick the caretakers practically starve her. One night, Keith sneaks down to the kitchen to steal some food for her. He's caught. They punish him by beating Lily.

She dies later that night. The caretakers pass the bruises off as symptoms. A year later, food production has increased enough that ration books are no longer necessary.

* * *

As a DNT, Keith's options for higher education are limited. Not many places want to put resources towards training him when he'll probably die soon enough. The Garrison is one of those places. If you're willing to help humanity get off of Earth, they'll take you. In fact, they've got the highest acceptance rate for DNTs anywhere. DNTs tend to be the exact kind of risk takers they want.

Keith has never lived outside before. He can look out his window and see the sunrise, he can sneak to the rooftop in the middle of the night and stargaze. The air is fresh, not ventilated. There haven't been checkpoints at the tunnel entrances for a long time now, but it still feels much more like freedom to live on the surface.

Keith has also never encountered so many DNTs in one place before. They stick together, roving the campus in packs. They greet each other by bumping their tattoos together, and tell each other, "Live fast die young." They overwhelmingly fill the top ranks, and Keith has never felt like he belonged so much before in his life.

* * *

An upperclassman comes to bother him in the library one day. "Hey, DNT. What are you even doing here?" Keith surreptitiously looks around, but there are no other DNTs in earshot. "You're taking up space. Don't you know that fifteen percent of DNTs die before they even graduate?"

A post-grad comes over. "Leave him alone."

The upperclassman sneers at the post-grad. "Step off radie. You're not much better than him."

The post-grad narrows his eyes. "Fighting words from someone who's in danger of flunking out." The upperclassman glares and leaves. The post-grad holds out his hand. "Shiro."

Keith takes it. "Keith."

As they shake, Shiro says, "Live fast die young."

* * *

Keith learns that Shiro's girlfriend was a DNT. She died last year.

Shiro's eyes often grow distant when they're hanging out in response to innocent words and phrases, and Keith knows he's remembering things. Keith was born while the bombs were still falling, an irradiated baby no one thought would live, but Shiro was eight years old. Old enough to remember. He never talks about it, and Keith never asks.

The only thing he ever reveals he does so accidentally, and that is that he had an older sister named Minami. He excuses himself immediately afterwards, and Keith lets him leave without question.

* * *

Keith has heard more than one older adult bemoan how much sex teenagers are having these days, but no one blames them. Life is terrifying, so they fuck like rabbits. And if someone gets pregnant with a healthy fetus, for a given value of healthy, all the better. Technically radies having sex on campus is against Garrison rules, but most faculty don't think that's fair and are willing to look the other way. Just because their genes are more damaged than their peers' doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to be teenagers.

Iverson is not one of those faculty members willing to bend the rules.

It's just Keith's luck that Iverson is the one who finds him and Patty pantsless and fully joined. He's clearly about to start shouting, but then he spots the condom wrapper on the floor and his jaw clicks shut. He makes a sound that from anyone else might be an exasperated sigh. "You turn sixteen in two weeks, don't you Kogane?"

"Yes sir."

Without another word Iverson shuts the closet door, clearly pretending he didn't see anything.

* * *

The Garrison has its own trained medical staff, and they slot Keith in a week after his birthday. He's sterilized on a Friday evening after classes end, so that he has the weekend to recuperate and if nothing goes wrong he doesn't have to miss class. He's still excused from physical activity until Medical clears him for it.

He doesn't let himself wonder if he cares about it or not. It's not like he has a future anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr: codefiant.tumblr.com


End file.
